Mark Wilson Jones

Doric Measure and Architectural Design 2: A Modular Reading of the Classical Temple

The design of ancient Greek Doric temples is an evergreen topic for architectural history, art history and archaeology, because of the fundamental importance of these building for both ancient Greek culture and classical architecture. To date analysis of these monuments has tended to focus on single buildings, yet comparison is vital for detecting patterns of practice. To date comparative studies have been few, and have been too broad and thinly spread. This study brings exacting comparative methods to bear on the analysis of a group of temples. This shows that they were designed according to a combination of proportional and modular principles, with the key module being the triglyph width. Such a method is not only simple and practical, it aligns well with the evidence of ancient texts, thus superseding previous interpretations. The metrological aspects of this work, and the emphasis on a foot of 327 mm long, has found recent confirmation (AJA Spring 2006) in the first Greek wooden measuring rule ever found.

The Pantheon: From Antiquity to the Present

1. Introduction Tod A. Marder and Mark Wilson Jones 2. Agrippas Pantheon and its origin Eugenio La Rocca 3. Dating the Pantheon Lise M. Hetland 4. The conception and construction of drum and dome Giangiacomo Martines 5. Sources and parallels for the design and construction of the Pantheon Gene Waddell 6. The Pantheon builders: estimating manpower for construction Janet DeLaine and Christina Triantafillou 7. Building on adversity: the Pantheon and problems with its construction Mark Wilson Jones 8. The Pantheon in the middle ages Erik Thuno 9. Impressions of the Pantheon in the Renaissance Arnold Nesselrath 10. The Pantheon in the seventeenth century Tod A. Marder 11. Neo-classical remodelling and reconception, 1700-1820 Susanna Pasquali 12. A nineteenth-century monument for the state Robin B. Williams 13. The Pantheon in the modern age Richard Etlin.

The Tempietto and the roots of coincidence

Firstly there is the unity in things whereby each thing is at one with itself, consists of itself and coheres with itself. Secondly there is the unity whereby one creature is united with the others and all parts of the world constitute one world. The Tempietto, the tiny monument commemorating St Peter’s martyrdom by the side of the church of S. Pietro in Montorio (Figs 1 & 2), has been praised as a model of perfection and a landmark in the history of architecture ever since its completion in the early sixteenth century. None the less some aspects of Bramante’s achievement remain obscure because they cannot be appreciated without knowing the dimensions that he intended, a knowledge which so far has been incomplete.

Palazzo Massimo and Baldassare Peruzzi’s approach to architectural design

The architectural career of Baldassare Peruzzi has traditionally been divided chronologically into halves, each epitomized by one of his two masterpieces, the Farnesina (Figs 1–3) and Palazzo Massimo (Figs 11–33). The commission for the Farnesina was granted him about 1505 by the exceedingly wealthy financier Agostino Chigi, who seems to have taken the young fellow Sienese under his wing. The Tuscan origins of the building’s patron and architect are reflected in its simplicity and lightness, and in the linear delicacy of its details which recalls in particular the style of Francesco di Giorgio Martini, who exerted a formative influence on the young Peruzzi before he left Siena. In the setting of Julius II’s Rome these qualities seem slightly anachronistic, yet the outcome is such a harmonious balance between elegant symmetry and relaxed planning, between architectural and painted decoration, that Vasari was moved to comment that the building appears to have been born rather than built ( non murato, ma veramente nato ).

Ancient Architecture and Mathematics: Methodology and the Doric Temple

By the mid-fifth century BC Greek architects had acquired a high degree of control over the design process, instilling individual temples with neat and accurate proportions while ensuring they conformed to broadly predictable patterns. The method/s employed elude consensus, however, and new hypotheses continue to appear. This paper sustains that temples were designed according to a modular method akin to that proposed by Vitruvius. Vitruvius’s specific method been discredited by modern scholarship, but a new insight overcomes what had seemed to be insuperable weaknesses. It is demonstrated that the triglyph acted as the lynchpin of a coherent and widely adopted system. The recent discovery on Salamis of a metrological relief provides clarity. The aim is to limit discussion of the ‘proof’ of this thesis in the interest of concentrating on arguments that support the case for modular design in Greek temples from a variety of standpoints (conceptual, symbolic, compositional, practical).

Ancient Greek And Roman Architects' Approach To Curvature — The Corinthian Capital, Entasis And Amphitheaters

The architecture of antiquity is substantially characterised by conventions associated with the orders (chiefly Doric, Ionic and Corinthian) and the most prevalent building types (temples, theatres, tombs and so on). This chapter focuses on the design of the Corinthian capital, the swelling of column shafts known as entasis, and the layout of amphitheatres. Progressively introduced during the 6th and 5th centuries B.C., the entasis of columns shafts became the most ubiquitous of all the socalled refinements that are such a hallmark of Greek sacred architecture. The defining geometrical characteristic of the amphitheatre is of course its elliptical/oval plan, one developed out of an understanding that it offered more dynamic qualities than the relatively static properties of circle. Greek and Roman architects created shapes with extreme attention to key geometrical and proportional characteristics. Keywords: amphitheatre; ancient Greek; Corinthian capital; Entasis; Roman architectsʼ